


when we drink we do it right

by recycledstars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Crack, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2578964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recycledstars/pseuds/recycledstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sloan throws a reluctant Mac a bachelorette party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. to understand the situation, you're going to have to hear how it began.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative summary: Errrrybody in this bitch gettin tipsy. (But especially MacKenzie McHale.) 
> 
> For most of its short life this has been saved as "if two crack fics had a baby and that baby went to a club and did lines in the bathroom this is what would happen.docx" so, your mileage may vary. I listened [this piece of culture from 2011](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s6H4ku6ZY) about ten times while I wrote this and I think it informed the text. 
> 
> (I'm having a minor breakdown and I blame this on that.)

She’s skimming through the _Washington Post_ when Sloan corners her in her office and says, "I'm still the closest thing to a female friend you have right?" 

“At what point can we stop prefacing it with ‘the closest thing I have’ and just call you my friend?”

“Actually right now works incredibly well for me. Let me start again. I’m the closest female friend you have right?”

Mac considers her answer carefully; it's rare that _that_ question from Sloan isn't some kind of trap. And she looks far too excited for a Monday morning. “Yes?”

"So I get to plan your bachelorette party right?"

She looks up over her glasses. "Well that's not happening."

"Wait do you mean I can't plan it or –"

"I mean it's literally not happening."

"Kenzie."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Okay forgive the double negative but you can't _not_ have a party."

"Sure I can. Sloan, I'm far too old to end up in a night club at two in the morning covered in glitter and faux feathers." She wrinkles her nose at the thought. “It’s … undignified.”

“First of all, you’re not old.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Second, there doesn’t have to be glitter _or_ feathers, it’ll just be a fun night out with the girls.” 

“You’ve just said you’re the only female friend I have. Who else is going to come?”

“Maggie, Tess, Tamara, Kendra ... the intern, what's her name again? ”

“Still not happening.”

Sloan pouts.

“You’re not going to change my mind.”

“I can see that and it’s making me sad. Like this. Look at my face. So sad.”

Mac leans back in her chair and folds her arms. “My answer is still no. Do you have a story for tonight?”

“What about the stimulus to the economy caused by increased consumption in the hospitality sector when tradition is upheld and a good friend, the best kind of friend really, throws a bride-to-be a bachelorette party?”

“Go.”

“I’ll wear you down.”

“You _won’t_.”

(She’s wrong, Sloan does.)

 

 

It happens something like this: 

Wedding planning involves a truly confounding number of frivolous details. Mac is good at details; she has an impressive collection of color coordinated office supplies all dedicated to keeping track of new stories and relevant facts and figures. She’s good at research and managing people and making things happen, actually that’s kind of her job. 

It’s true, she’s never been properly girlie – she doesn’t really understand the color pink and was reading biographies of American presidents when she should have been playing with dolls – but she’s girlie _enough_ ; she likes shoes and clothes and make up and spending money in general and still, _still_ , she doesn’t understand why she should be panicking about centerpieces, ‘creamy ivory’ sounds more like a dessert on a molecular gastronomy degustation menu than a color, and frankly she’s offended by the mere _suggestion_ of a ‘wedding diet.’ 

And there is absolutely no way in _hell_ she is signing up for Pinterest.

It’s so _trivial_ and important things are happening in the world: there’s the fiscal cliff (again) and Syria (again) and gun crime (again) and their entire audience is getting their news elsewhere (she can only _hope_ it’s Al Jazeera because the other networks are as awful as ever, Fox after Sandy Hook is _sickening_ ) and then there’s this fucking lawsuit that just won’t go away …

So it’s possible she’s trying to control this one thing more than is humanly possible or necessary because she can’t seem to get a hold on anything else. And it’s not like it should be _hard_. She’s been feeling morally and intellectually superior to the entire PR/event planning industry for her whole adult life; she’s _smart_ and worldly and she _should_ be able to do this.

Even if _this_ is a microcosm of every shallow thing she’s spent her professional life rallying against and what she’s looking at is pages and pages of exactly the same mind-numbing _bullshit._ And what’s even more irksome is the fact that deep down there’s a tiny part of her that _wants_ it all even though she absolutely intends to pretend she’s above it. 

And she does, she pretends she’s above it for an entire month before she gives up and dumps the pile of wedding-related mess she’s accumulated on Sloan’s desk and says, “Teach me.”

“Kenzie, no offence, but I don’t think I can really explain the finer points of quantitative easing in a way that makes sense to you. Especially since no one agrees on what it actually is.”

“Isn’t that just like … _all_ of economics?”

Sloan nods side to side, “More or less.”

“And besides, the Quantity Theory of Credit is one of the _simplest_ empirical models incorporating the important macroeconomic role of the banking sector and I do _get it_ , sort of, banks have to create credit for the economy to grow and the Fed is buying back liabilities so that banks keep lending which I’m told doesn’t actually mean that I should be running up credit card debt buying shoes to help the economy.” She takes a breath. “At which point I did lose interest but I’m not talking about _that_. Teach me how to be the kind of girl, woman, who cares about planning a wedding.”

“Firstly, I like that you knew all that.” Sloan holds her hands to her heart. “I’m so proud.”

“I ... know things.”

“Secondly, I have to warn you that I _love_ Will. I love you too, but I _love_ Will so if you’re having second thoughts ...”

“Don’t be stupid, I want to marry Will, but I want to _marry Will_. I don’t care about the rest of it. I don’t know how to do _any_ of it. And you’ve done it –”

“That did not end well.”

“It’d be a little hypocritical of me to judge – ”

“Right.” Sloan leans back in her chair. “Well what did you picture, when you were a little girl?”

“Being Jane Craig in _Broadcast News_.”

“Seriously.”

“Sometimes it was running for President but I was more ambitious back then.” 

For that Mac earns a not-really-all-that-amused look.

“I wasn’t that kind of little girl Sloan. I used to read … State Department papers and use my dolls to play mock UN Security Council negotiations.” 

“ _Fun_.”

“They were trying to broker a diplomatic solution to the invasion of the Falklands.” 

“How’d that go?”

“Trade sanctions were imposed. And okay, I know I look like this _now_.” She gestures up and down her body. “But I was a little … awkward when I was younger.” 

“So was I!”

“I grew into myself. But I’d never … bothered with those things because I wasn’t very good at them and they made me feel silly.” Mac pauses. “I mean, I thought about the _ring_.” 

(Her maternal grandmother has a collection of jewelry she’s been eyeing since she first saw it at five years old and she decided then and there that she liked shiny expensive things. There was a hair-pulling incident involving one of her cousins over a particular necklace that she's ashamed to say she thinks might be repeated when they read Granny's will. Not for nothing, but as a child she won.)

“Asset focused,” Sloan says, pulling a magazine from the stack on her desk and compromising its structural integrity. She flips through the pages. “I like it. The dress?”

“It was the 80s.” 

“Point taken.” Sloan looks up. “Okay. I will share my wisdom.”

“Thank you.”

“One condition –” Sloan begins.

Mac cuts her off. “No.”

“I get to plan the party.”

"No."

“I was going to do it anyway.”

“That’s true.”

"Now it just won't be a surprise."

“I hate surprises."

"I know."

"No strippers."

"I'm offended that you don't think my party will be classy. Look at me. I'm classy."

“No sequins, no glitter, no feathers, no props of any kind.” 

(That all goes to hell too.)

 

 

It turns out the party gets more attention than the actual wedding even though Mac’s reasonably sure it’s meant to be the other way around. 

Actually the _wedding_ hardly gets any attention. 

Sloan keeps coming over on weekends to help but it’s football season and Mac just ends up wedged in between her and Will while they shout at the television no matter how many times she tries to explain to both of them that it doesn’t count as _helping at all_.

They keep going back and forward on dates because her father’s cardiologist doesn’t want him to travel for six months and there are indeterminate court dates to contend with and … all these _other_ things to worry about.

She’s finally convinced him (well, a shoe box to the head convinced him but potato, pot-a-to) that she doesn’t have enough closet space so they’re looking at new apartments, their ratings are only just starting to pick up, Neal’s chasing a story and she’s having Genoa flashbacks. But mostly she’s still adjusting to the idea that she’s allowed to reach out and touch him whenever she wants because it’s been so many years of self-control and she’s still _marveling_ at it, at touching his shoulder when she can see him getting too far in his head or stopping him in the doorway with a hand on his arm instead of words. 

Oh, and _the news_ keeps happening.

Even though some days you wouldn’t know it in rundown meetings:

They pick up with a day old impasse over gender discrimination in bachelorette party invitations. 

"No boys," Sloan whines. 

"Jim's coming," Mac insists.

"Am I?" Jim asks.

"Oh please. You saved my life once."

"And right now I regret that."

"You've _got_ to come." Mac gives him her _I’m wounded and adorable_ look, which almost never fails.

Sure enough, Jim agrees, albeit conditionally: "Then Neal has to come."

"Can we do some work?" Will asks.

"You're definitely not invited," Sloan says.

"I got that. Thank you."

(Will takes sarcasm to new levels every time they have this discussion. Which is fair enough really since they’ve had it _more than once_.)

"Neal can come," Mac says.

Neal shifts in his seat. "Uh actually I have _pl_ – "

Jim kicks him under the table.

"You're ruining my party," Sloan says.

“I thought it was _my_ party.”

“It _is_ ,” Sloan assures her, smiling up at Mac who’s standing in front of their still-blank board. Then she turns to the table. “It’s _mine_ and I will kill you if you ruin it.”

“Should I make the announcement that you’re all leaving broadcast news for party planning our top story?” Will asks.

“If you like, nobody seems to be doing much else,” Mac says.

They look at each other across the table and he gives her only the smallest smile because he’s still trying to pretend he’s annoyed by it all but she beams back at him because she’s so _stupidly happy_. She twists the ring around on her finger like she does all the time now, to ground herself because _it’s real_ but sometimes she still can’t believe it. And she doesn’t even care about the circus around them. 

(It helps that she already has most of the show in her head: North Korea, Syria, the G8 summit, Missouri, give or take a few minutes plus Sloan’s segment, they’re covered.) 

The room goes quiet without either of them noticing for a full minute plus change. Finally Mac realizes the entire staff is leaning forward in their seats, looking at her. Which is where she’s been _trying_ to get them for 20 minutes but it’s unnerving when she’s not saying anything. “What?” she asks.

“Ninety seconds,” Neal declares, holding up his iPhone on stopwatch. 

“You’re doing it again,” Sloan says. 

“The eye thing,” Garry adds.

Tess nods: “ _Gazing_ at each other”

“We _were not_.”

“You were,” Tamara counters.

“Jim?”

“I’m staying out of this.”

“Neal?”

“I … yeah. Sorry. There were definitely ninety seconds of – ”

“I think it’s cute,” Maggie assures her.

“So do I,” Sloan says. “It’s _adorable_.”

“It’s not – ” Mac frowns. “There is _no_ gazing.”

Garry risks his life contradicting her: “Actually there’s always been gazing.”

“Yeah but now it’s not lovelorn,” Tess says.

“That’s it. I’m leaving,” Will announces.

“The governor of Maryland wants to tax rain,” Jim pitches.

“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere,” Mac says, with short-lived enthusiasm fast replaced by confusion: “Wait, what?”

“It’s called a storm management fee,” Maggie explains without really explaining anything at all. “Fox is blaming Obama.”

“Well that’s hardly news,” Kendra remarks. It causes a hum of agreement around the table.

“ _Syria_ ,” Will yells over the top of it. 

“Thank you!” 

She writes it at the top of the board and they actually get some work done, after that.

 

 

Sloan enlists the assistance of Maggie and she keeps catching them _giggling_ together over things they refuse to show her. 

Which is alarming, to say the least.

 

 

Still, it’s kind of sweet. They’re all so excited for her (and Will, somewhat parenthetically) and it helps keep her excited even on the worst days.

(Days when she has to contend with Dantana’s _fucking_ lawyers and the _Times_ , of all places, breaking the “news” that they’re engaged and she answers hour upon hour of overly invasive and _insulting_ questions about her personal life as though she spends all her time drawing Will’s name in hearts all over her notebooks instead of _producing the news_. Because there’s no _possible way_ a _woman_ – she’s quite sure he’s not being asked the same questions – could be _professional_ about it. Okay. E-mail incidents and ex-boyfriend-induced meltdowns and maybe one or two or ten public arguments aside. 

Mac wonders if Becca knows how close she is to defending them all for murder. There's certainly a conspiracy to commit.)

So she remains good-humored about it with utter faith in their good intentions and _that’s_ how she ends up in a nightclub at two in the morning covered in glitter and faux feathers.

And yes, it is a little undignified.


	2. so here's the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still _exactly_ what it says on the box. I haven't seen the new episode yet* so this may not actually jive with season 3 canon but what the heck. In for a penny, in for 8000 words worth of unfinished fic when the new season airs amirite? [Now comes with soundtrack, to get you in the mood for alcohol-related silliness.](http://8tracks.com/recycledstars/stacks-on-deck)
> 
> (* I'm suffering through final exam related woe. Pity me.)

At the beginning of the evening it seems more-or-less harmless. Sure there are drinks with silly decorations in them and _yes_ , they’re pink but other than that it’s just a run-of-the-mill night in a slightly nicer bar than they usually frequent with a tolerable level of wedding-related nonsense. Like, for example, her own personalized version of the Newlywed Game. Which Maggie announces and Mac makes a face that says _gag me with a spoon_ because it’s so cutesy and they're hardly a cutesy couple. 

(Well, not in public. She’s said some things she’s not proud of behind closed doors.)

Someone documents her reaction, the first and only picture from the night where her hair is still pinned up and her make up’s still where it’s meant to be. The ‘before shots’ shot.

Mac sighs. “I don’t know why I agreed to this.”

“Because you needed my help.” Sloan pats her shoulder.

“And where has _that_ gotten me?”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

Maggie explains the one final rule: “And whenever you get one wrong you have to drink.”

"Well that doesn't sound like a good idea."

Then again, how bad could it be? She's confident in how well she knows him. (Overly so, as it turns out.)

She flips through the cards in rapid succession.

“He wouldn’t have answered that. Or that.” She looks up. “Did he answer _any_ of these questions?”

“He did,” Maggie confirms. “Mostly with sarcasm and curse words, but we’re investigative reporters. We made some calls.”

 

 

Mac ends up quite drunk after that. Only because all of his answers are _completely_ wrong: 

“Will doesn’t have his facts straight, that was _not_ our first date,” she protests but whatever it is Maggie hands her to drink tastes amazing so she does the shot anyway and it’s her third in as many questions. “It’s not a _date_ if it’s the same thing you always _did_ before you agreed to date.”

“That’s true,” Sloan says.

“Depends on the context,” Maggie counters. 

“We’ll need to hear the full story,” Tess agrees. 

Mac frowns. “I think you’re trying to trick me.”

“Probably,” Kendra remarks.

“Tell the story,” Tess encourages.

“He’s referring to drinks, after Friday’s show, like we _always did_.”

They crowd in, and she mostly loses track of who’s asking what:

“Were you alone?”

“ _Coincidentally_. Everyone else left early.”

“Did you go home with him?”

“No.”

“Were there any other date-like qualities to the evening?” 

“No more than any other night.” 

“At any point, but especially at the end of the evening, did your mouths touch?”

“No.” She wrinkles her nose. “And when you put it like that it makes me feel glad of it.”

“Who paid?” Jim asks.

Maggie turns on him. “ _Really_? Because if it were a date it would be a _transaction_?” 

“ _No_. But.” He flounders. “It feels relevant.”

“He did.”

“Did you count it in your three?” Tess asks.

“What?” 

“The three date rule,” Tamara says, like that’s a cue. 

“I’m not following.”

“You wait until the third date to sleep together,” Sloan tells her.

“Is that still a rule?” Maggie asks.

“The numbers say no,” Jim comments. “A survey I saw said the most common number reported by respondents was two.”

Maggie raises her eyebrows. “A survey you saw _where_? The cover of _Cosmo_?”

“I was waiting at the dentist.”

“I didn’t _count_ it at all because it _wasn’t_ a date,” Mac insists.

Neal, who has been quiet throughout, offers his verdict: “It doesn’t sound like a date to me.”

“Your own wedding wouldn’t sound like a date to you,” Jim quips. 

“That’s a good idea,” Maggie says. “Let’s apply the Neal test.”

Tess turns to Neal. “Neal, after an evening so described would you avoid calling, texting, e-mail, IM and social media for the 48 hours for fear of accidental commitment?”

“Guys, I’m not that bad.”

“You are,” Jim informs him.

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Then it doesn’t count,” Maggie declares, to agreement all round.

“ _Thank you_. I should get a free pass because he was wrong.”

“No free passes,” at least five of them chorus in unison. 

“Okay.” Sloan raps her hand against the table. “Next question.” 

“Complete this sentence,” Mac reads. “It must be true that opposites attract because we’re complete opposites when it comes to …” She pauses. “Well that’s easy. Roe v. Wade.”

“Actually he said…” Sloan bends her head to see the other side of the card: “ _Over sharing_.” 

(Which is a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts _._ )

 

 

After four drinks, Mac has a tendency to tell anyone and everyone that she has the greatest staff in all of television. After six she has a tendency to tell them loudly. And while hugging them. So that feels like the optimal time to introduce the dollar store bachelorette party impedimenta. 

Because Sloan _is_ classy but tacky accoutrements are far too amusing to pass up, especially when the lady-slash-bride-to-be doth protest so strongly. 

“You promised me no ridiculous headwear,” Mac complains, shaking her head to make the task of crowning her with one shiny plastic tiara as difficult as possible.

Sloan steps back and admires her handiwork. “It was Maggie's idea.”

“Hey, Sloan _paid_ for it. At best she was an accomplice.” __  
  
“It's true, I did and I was.” Sloan pulls out her phone and takes a picture. “You look great. I should tweet this. Maybe it’d get us some good press for a change.”

“Don’t you _dare_.”

“Relax Kenzie, I would _never_.” 

“Show me,” Mac demands. “Oh my god it’s _horrid_.”

They laugh at her. “You sound very British right now.”

Her impression of the queen is about as good as all her others but they’re too American to really _know_ the difference. So she declares them her loyal subjects and waves at them and then _giggles_.

(Bona fide, girlish, _drunk_ giggle of the variety she almost always pretends she’s too intellectual for; not that she doesn’t have a sense of humour or _fun_ or anything. Just that she’s _refined_. More or less. Mostly less, at present.) 

Maggie looks at Sloan. "We've created a monster."

Sloan looks at Maggie. “In retrospect this could have been predicted.”

Mac says something about _just desserts_ very imperiously.

(It’s meant to be a joke about Queen of Puddings but it’s so poorly formed that they’d hardly understand it if they did know what she was talking about, which they don’t.)

 

 

 _Never Have I Ever_ gets decidedly un-PG unsurprisingly quickly. So un-PG that she really does have to say something, because HR may not care about what goes on on their floor but now is _not_ the time to have the intern launching her blog into the public consciousness with some kind of scandalous post about drinking and a salacious office culture. (Not that everyone present isn’t participating _fully_ but between Tess and Neal, she’s not sure how deep the rabbit hole will go.)

She takes her required drink – _never have I ever slept with more than one person at the same time_ and okay, it was a long time ago and she was in _Europe_ –before climbing up on her chair. __  
  
"As the boss." (Mac thinks she'd probably sound more authoritative without slurring her 's'es but that ship has long sailed.) "I feel I should remind everyone about appropriate workplace behavior. Because I'd hate to give HR an opportunity to give _that_ presentation ever again." 

"Okay." Jim takes her elbow. "Off the table."

"It's a chair."

"Still not the time to fight gravity. I think you'll lose."

"There are so many slides Jim." She rests her hands on his shoulders. "So many."

"Appropriate workplace behavior," Tess says. "That's a good one. Never have I ever engaged in – " 

"No." Jim looks pained. "Please don't. Please, _please_ consider the possibility that there are things I don't want to know."

“ – sex in the workplace.”

Every one drinks, except Sloan and Mac, who's a little lopsided on her chair, glass wobbling in her hand as she thinks very carefully about her answer.

"Define sex," she says.

Jim hides his face in his hands. 

( _That_ debate ebbs and flows for the rest of the evening.)

 

 

After months of drinking too much too regularly Maggie can really hold her liquor, which is why she’s the only one who notices Jim’s state of near-sobriety. 

“Jim’s too sober,” she declares.

“Jim. Are you too sober?” Mac asks.

“He is,” Maggie assures her.

“Make him drink.” 

“Will do.” Maggie turns to the bar: “Six shots of tequila please.” 

Jim’s eyebrows shoot up. (Never in history has the phrase _six shots of tequila_ ended well.) “Who’s paying for all this?” 

Mac leans back on her chair and laughs. “Will.” 

(She takes great joy in spending his money and he takes great joy in complaining about it, which is serendipitous.)

“Okay. Someone needs to cut her off,” Jim says. 

“I’m _fine_.” 

Jim steadies her on the chair. “And, it's _way_ too early for tequila shots to sound like a good idea.”

“I’ll race you,” Maggie says, neatly downing her first shot.

“No. I went to college and there I learned the dangers of – ”

“I triple dog dare you,” Maggie challenges.

"What are we? Ten years old?"

"Drink Jim,” Mac sing-songs.

“This entire night is straight out of an anti-peer pressure advertisement,” he says, before downing the shot.

Mac makes an indignant noise. “ _You’re_ telling _me_.” 

She’s a little too emphatic with her hands though, so at least she saves him from the third one.

 

 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Mac asks Sloan.

“Sure.” 

“I love Will _so_ much.

Sloan pats her indulgently. “That’s not a secret. You practically told me the moment you met me.” 

“I lead with the _facts_. But that’s not the secret.” She pauses to take a mouthful of whatever it is she’s drinking. (She’s completely lost track.) “The secret is I hate weddings.” 

“Also not a secret,” Sloan observes, but it goes unnoticed.

“You know, it’s impossible not to after _years_ of everyone you know getting married and then divorced and then married _again_ and I really think that by the second one you shouldn’t be obligated to buy the gift and the dress and drink enough cheap wine to make Aunt Erma’s vaguely racist conversation _tolerable_ at dinner and _Lord_ forbid you have to be a bridesmaid and make nice with _his_ moron friends who’re all _drunk_ at this point, and your so-called _friend_ has told them allyou’re still single which apparently means it’s all hands on _wherever_...” She trails off. “Is it just me?”

“Yes.”

“Well anyway, I’ve never liked them. But I always thought I’d like _mine_.” 

She drinks again. Sloan reaches out and slides the glass away from her. 

“And why does it have to be _my_ job? You know, it’s 2013, if we’re so _progressive_ , why can’t he do it?”

“That’s your vision for gender equity? Not the glass ceiling or equal pay or a Republican caucus that understands basic biology. Wedding planning?”

“Why _not_? I’ve really had _far_ too much to drink to solve any of those other very complicated issues right now, but I do think that _this one_ _thing_ could – ”

“Okay firstly, do you want to get married in a sports bar?”

“Good point.” Mac reaches out and swipes her glass back. “Actually,” she begins, glass still at her lips. “If Will’s there and we _get married_ , and _he’s_ happy then I don’t care.”

“I’ll make sure no one ever tells him you said that.”

“Thank you.”

“Just hire someone to do it for you.”

"I don't want to deal with someone who loves weddings when I hate weddings and it feels like you'd have to love weddings if you planned them."

“That does seem logical. _Still_ – ”

“Sloan?” Mac drains her glass and looks at her sideways. Which spells trouble.

“Yes?”

“How are you and _Don_?”

“I was afraid of this moment.” 

(It was bound to be her turn eventually; Mac’s been making the rounds, including learning all about the bartender’s “rubbish” ex-boyfriend. Mac promptly introduced her to Neal.)

“You haven’t _said_ anything about it in weeks so I’ve known _something_ was up but I didn’t think you’d tell me and now you have to because…” She smiles. “It’s my party.”

“It’s mine.”

“ _Still_. I mean what’s the problem? I know you’ve had a crush on him forever.”

“I haven’t.”

“You _have_.”

“Okay, I have. But that’s not important. What is important is … you know how you’re meant to know? I mean I know, but I don’t _know_ , you know, and I thought you were meant to _know_.”

“That’s a very confusing sentence.”

“That it’s _right_ , aren’t you meant to – ”

“I don’t think you’re meant to anything.”

“Kenzie, you’re getting married. I think you’re meant to _know_.”

“Please. Nobody _knows_ Sloan. People who say they do are either stupid or they’re lying.”

“This is _you_ saying this? You call me every time there’s a Meg Ryan movie on TV.”

“That’s because I know _you_ like them.” 

(She prefers golden age Hollywood, Katharine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell, because at least she can pretend it’s high brow but the point stands, they both have a bit of a secret taste for romance narratives.)

“Real life isn’t like that. Actually I think thinking that real life is like that is what got me into trouble the first time with Will.”

“No I’m pretty sure that was –”

“ _And_ that. But that was _because_. You know.”

“I think the point of this conversation is that I do not.”

“I’ve decided,” Mac declares, with another of her sweeping hand gestures. (Sloan rescues her drink just in time.) “That everything happens for a reason.”

“Is that because you and Will are finally – ”

“Yes.” 

“Because you do remember that it took six years? Long years? You were both really unhappy and –”

“Doesn’t matter.” Mac cuts her off. “Because I really think that every single thing in the _entire world_ happened.” She frowns when Sloan laughs. “No. Don’t laugh at me. I’m not saying it _only_ happened for me and Will. That would be silly. I just mean. If it hadn’t happened exactly the way it did, all the news stories and our lives and.” She weaves her hands together. “ _Everything_. Then I don’t know where we’d be.”

“You don’t believe in fate?”

“What I just described _is_ fate. So. One thing just leads to another and another and you don’t have to be sure. Don’t sleep with your ex-boyfriend though. Wait.” She cocks her head to one side. “Who is your ex-boyfriend?”

“I don’t think we can count them if you don’t remember their names.”

“I never remember any of their names.”

“Guess I’m safe on the ex-boyfriend.” Sloan finishes her drink. “You’re a lot wiser when you’re drunk.”

Mac frowns. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” 

 

 

Tess introduces her to Snapchat. 

“Okay I’m taking a video, wave.”

"This is incredibly silly," she says.

"But fun!" Tess insists. 

"Ooh Garry snapped us back."

"I'm not sure it's called that."

"I have decided that it is," she decrees, in her queen voice. 

(Mac's also decided she kind of likes the tiara.) 

 

 

Jim looks like the unhappiest person in the world to ever wear a glittery pink top hat. Which is actually kind of impressive because, well, _glittery pink top hat_.

“You look very silly,” Mac informs him happily. (Then again, she’s pretty happy about everything, Jim tries not to take it personally.)

“Thank you.”

“You're _welcome_.” She reaches out and adjusts the brim. "Oh Jim. Jim Jim Jim. You know that I love you."

"I do know that. You've told me four times tonight."

"But I _really_ do." 

"I love you too." He pats her shoulder. "Or I wouldn't be wearing this stupid hat."

She gestures to where Neal is deep in conversation with one of the bartenders. "Neal's wearing one."

"Neal's picking up wearing one."

"See? It _can_ be done."

"I have a girlfriend."

"How is Hallie? Is it hard? Long distance relationships can be hard."

"She’s good and yes, they can."

"But you have Skype now. So I suppose that makes it easier."

“I'm suddenly incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation. That’s not going to make it end is it?"

"Because they say men are more visual.”

“You realise that saying _we_ have Skype now is verging on a _back in my day_ statement? You once made me promise never to let you make them.”

“Back in my day? Are you calling me _old_?” She narrows her eyes at him. “No. You’re just trying to distract me. We were talking about _you_.”

“We don’t have to talk about me. We can talk about you. Or literally anything else.” 

“I’m just saying, it must make it easier, being apart. Being able to see each other when you – you know. Although I’ve never really minded just talking on the phone and I don’t think Will does either but I suppose it’s just _normal_ for us because I talk in his ear every night of the week anyway and he does this radio presenter voice, and it just really – “

Which is on another level of “more than Jim ever wanted to know” about his boss and his other boss-slash-mentor-slash-surrogate-much-older-sister-figure (she’d kill him for saying mother, plus, that would be _weird_ ) and he didn’t think it was possible to surpass _never have I ever woken up to someone going down on me_. (And the revelation that she apparently had some pretty adventurous years at Cambridge.)

“O- _kay_ let’s not talk about you. Hey, it’s a great … party. Just _great_.”

“It is.” She smiles. “You’re all my favourite people. Now Jim.” She folds her arms and looks as serious as it’s possible to look wearing a tiara from a first grader’s Halloween costume. “Are you happy? Wait! Before you answer.” She reaches out and removes his hat. “There. Now. Are you happy with your life Jim?”

“I can see you’re happy with yours right now.”

“I _am_. But I want you to be happy too.”

He looks at her, exasperated but fond, because it’s hard not to like Mac, even when he thinks she should be annoying him. She’s so wholehearted, so transparent and so shameless about it, and a bit of a one-woman screwball comedy (except when it counts.) And he’s happy that she’s happy again; she’d been too sad for too long after Genoa.

“I am,” he says, because it’s true and because he’d always think twice before telling her otherwise. 

Not that he doesn’t trust her. (Actually he thinks if he ever killed anyone, he’d call her. She’s slight, but surprisingly strong and she has an odd fascination with getting away with murder.) But ever since they came home from Pakistan, she’s worried about him. Needlessly, but for whatever reason she has a bit of a guilt complex about it and he’s never been able to convince her to stop.

She hugs him again. “Good. Because you know I love you.”

He pats her shoulder and just _knows_ it’s going to be his job to look after her when she’s sick, if it comes to that. “Oh Jesus.”

 

 

Neal starts taking her drinks and replacing them with water. She doesn’t notice, which says a lot.

“Thank you,” Mac says. “For editing my Wikipedia page.” She announces it to no one in particular and no one in particular pays her any attention: “Somebody keeps editing my Wikipedia page and I make Neal edit it back.”

“You know I could just show you how to do it.”

“Now where would be the fun in that?”

“For me or for you?”

“For either of us.” She moves from sprawling on the bar, face propped on her hand to leaning in close, elbows on her knees. “Now, I’ve never asked you this, but did Will completely ruin your chances with Shelly Wexler?”

“What?”

“The girl from Occupy Wall Street. You had a thing for her, she had a crush on you?” 

“I know who you’re – there was no thing.“

“Neal. You’re lying to me.” 

“This is a strange conversation.”

“Were you seeing someone else? Is that why it didn’t work out? Is there something going on between you and Jenna?”

“Who?”

“The intern.”

He texts Jim under the table: _help me_.

 _Oh no,_ Jim replies, _you didn’t rescue me from SKYPE SEX, you’re on your own_. 

 

 

Maggie and Mac end up having the kind of deep and meaningful conversation that can only happen drunk and waiting in line for the women’s bathroom. There are tears and apologies and hugging and neither of them remember a word of it the next day.

It starts with Mac saying, “I’m _so sorry_.”

“For what?” Maggie asks, surprised by the arms thrown around her shoulders. “Oh, okay, we’re hugging.”

“You're my tiny little younger version of me. I shouldn’t have let you go to Africa.”

“I _wanted_ to go.”

“I _know_ you did and I didn’t want to stop you. Because all I want, for all of you, is just to give you all the opportunities I can to be _great_ because I think you’re _great_ Maggie. You’re going to do so many great things.”

“Do you really think that?” 

“I _do_ think that, I really do.”

Then they both get a little teary and it’s all very cathartic. And a little hazy. 

 

 

It’s _Truth or Dare_ when she really and truly embarrasses herself. Because given everything that’s happened she doesn’t trust any of them at all with _dare_ so she keeps picking _truth_ and when they figure out that she’ll answer anything they ask they take full advantage.

It starts of quite mildly –

“Where did you meet?”

“You’ll be disappointed you’ve wasted your question on such a boring answer. You’ve all been there.” They look at her expectantly and she takes a moment to enjoy the captive audience. “Where we have our rundown meeting every day, when Charlie tricked Will into thinking _he_ was hiring me to be his EP.” She pauses, frowns. “You know it’s never occurred to me before, I already _had_ a contract, but Will didn’t know that. Do you think it’s _possible_ that I only got the job because – somebody remind me to kill him.”

But then they up the ante –

“How many people were you with before you got back together and have you told him about them?”

“Hardly any.” Truth. “And _yes_.” Entirely transparent lie, which she’s promptly called out on. “Ok _no_. Because you’ve _met_ Will, he’ll be jealous and rude if we ever see any of them ever again and since at some point that’s likely to happen – ” 

“Wait why is it likely?” Maggie asks.

“Does that mean it’s someone who works in the building?” Tess leans forward in her seat. “Plot twist.”

“I’m not telling; you’re only meant to get one question and that was technically two.”

“I know,” Sloan gloats.

“ _Don’t_ tell.”

That’s thoroughly ignored: “Mac accidentally slept with the weather guy.”

Maggie looks perplexed. “How do you _accidentally_ sleep with someone?”

“Ask Jim,” Mac tells her. “He did it for _three_ months.” 

“There can be … misunderstandings,” Jim insists.

“ _Exactly._ And by the time I realized what was happening it seemed cruel to say so.”

“Ask me how I know,” Sloan says and no one does and she continues without skipping a beat, “Alright I’ll tell you. She made me _hide_.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“Well you would _too_ , it was a very uncomfortable situation.” 

Maggie looks sympathetic: “Haven’t we all hidden? At one point or another. It’s just _easier._ ” 

“ _Yes_. Now can we please agree to never mention this, ever again?” Mac holds her finger out to each of them in turn. “And if you could also … pray, that there’s never another natural disaster requiring an expert meteoro- meterololog – weather person I would also appreciate that.”

And it only gets worse – 

“Who’s louder?” Jenna asks, encouraged by Tess, Tamara and Neal and accompanied by a lot of giggling from the same.

“What do you – _oh_. I don’t think I should answer that.” Mac adjusts the tiara so it’s a little less lopsided. “He’d _kill me_ for answering sex questions.”

(A poorly timed admission, because of course that means she gets _more_ of them.)

“Me. I never really was before but … you know.”

“No you’re _definitely_ going to have to be more specific,” Tamara tells her, straight-faced. 

So she is.

(The game continues: Maggie dares Jim to order some kind of flaming shot so Jim dares her to let Tess text anyone in her contacts list. And it turns out Neal's sexuality is somewhat fluid.)

When it’s Mac's turn again Sloan asks her, “When did you first know you were in love with him?”

“I fell in love with Will a little bit during the first broadcast we ever did together.”

Neal looks touched. “That’s sweet.”

“No, really I did. And a little bit more every one after.”

“We should write this down,” Sloan says. “She’s been _freaking_ about vows.”

“I _have not_.”

“She has a little.”

“Even if I am _that_ won’t work because he won’t remember it that way. He still thinks … look, I know you all know the story, so you know that a _lot_ of things happened. It was simple for him and it was complicated for me and Will thinks that it should’ve happened all at once. But it didn’t. All these little things happened, and they kept, they _keep_ happening, and I didn’t love him before but little by little I did. And I have ever since.” 

“This is the greatest story ever,” Sloan says feeling happy and a little tipsy. “You guys are the best.”

“This is embarrassing, it’s Jim’s turn.”

“I’d really like to hear more about this,” Jim says to deflect the attention. 

“Me too,” Sloan agrees.

“Same,” Tamara sighs, then adds, “No offense Jim.” 

“See that's the problem with saying no offense, I wasn’t offended before, but now I am.”

So she holds court and tells them all stories and they forget that it’s a game right up until Tess says, “Okay, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Tell us your best sex story.”

“No. That’s not a question and anyway, I’m not answering.” 

They wait patiently because this far from sober Mac almost always finds a way to fill a silence.

She’s still shaking her head when she _starts_ answering: “Well –”

 

 

Don texts Sloan to see if the party’s wrapping up, which it emphatically isn’t. So she breaks her own ‘no boys in the clubhouse’ rule and invites him along. Mac sees him first and greets him with zeal: “ _Don_.” 

She opens her arms wide and hugs him.

“MacKenzie,” he says, looking confused.

“Hi Don.” 

“She’s drunk,” Sloan explains. 

“I noticed that.”

“This is Sloan’s fault.”

Sloan comes to her own defense: “It’s not.”

“ _Yes_. It _is_.” She makes a face. “I never wanted this Don. She talked me into it. Now.” She pats his chest. “How are _you_? Tell me about your life.”

“My life?”

“How are you and _Sloan_? Apparently you need to do something that Tess calls the DTR talk which I think stands for … something. But I only know what she tells me, I think I should get _your_ side of the story.”

“You only know what Sloan tells you?” Don connects a few dots, looks at Sloan over Mac’s shoulder. “And you want my side of the story?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Then I definitely think we should talk. Off the record.”

“Kenzie – ” Sloan objects, 

Don smiles at her sweetly over Mac’s shoulder. “ _My_ side of the story.”

“You’re fine,” Mac is already saying. “I think ...”

Sloan can’t hear her after that, but she’s sure there are loose lips sinking ships. 

So there is _some_ karmic justice.

 

 

They end up in a club that’s not specifically _gay_ but is playing _I Love the Nightlife_ when they walk in, so, it’s implied. Mac thinks that’s probably where the glitter comes from. And the feathers.

There’s another round of tequila shots and selfies and then Maggie drags her out on the dance floor.

She’s exactly drunk enough to think dancing is a good idea, even though there’s some part of her mind that’s still aware she’s not very good at it. Sloan and Neal actually look _cool_ and Tess and Tamara start grinding up on each other so they blend in. Jim stands around looking awkward and really, really white, next to Don who _tries_ to dance with Sloan but really can’t keep up.

Then there’s Maggie, and they’re both equally terrible and equally enthusiastic so Maggie sings along to songs Mac doesn’t know the words to and they jump around and pull out all the terrible, clichéd dance moves they can come up with and twirl each other around. (They probably look ridiculous but they’re also having _way_ more fun than anybody else.)

Neal does an impressive _Harlem Shake_.

As it happens, everyone knows the words to _Call Me Maybe._

Even Jim.

And she thinks dignity might be a little overrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that happened and I sincerely apologize. A slightly more sexually adventurous MacKenzie McHale than I usually write, but here were are. Next up, Will gets dragged into the nonsense.


End file.
